Swan's Anatomy
by how-long-can-this-name-be-omg
Summary: She's a doctor. Her husband's a doctor. Her best friend's a doctor. Hell, her mother was surgical royalty. Dr. Isabella Swan-Masen thrives in the competitive world of surgical medicine. That's the only world that she's ever known. She's poured her blood, sweat and tears into saving lives, so when she realises she's about to bring one into the world, things get interesting.
1. Contemplation

This fanfiction heavily draws inspiration from some episodes of Grey's Anatomy season 9, thus I lay no claim on the originality of the plot, but merely contributed to a Twilight adaptation of it. Hope you enjoy this!

* * *

As the rays of the morning sun warmed up the bedroom, Bella woke up to a soft sensation behind her ear, Edward's warm exhale tickling her sensitive skin. His arms tightened around her waist, the pad of his thumbs stroking her stomach. The gentle ministrations brought a smile on her face.

"Today is a big day." He whispered into her ear. Bella nuzzled into his side, feeling more awake by the second.

"Yeah, it is. I'm excited about it."

"Wait, really?" Disbelief coloured his words. His emotionally restrained wife wasn't someone who got excited over sharing personal details with their co-workers. He nudged her shoulder down, forcing her to face him. Her face showed her confusion, so he tried to ask her again.

"Are you finally going to tell Rosalie that you're pregnant?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Her face drew a blank.

"Well, today is the last day of your first trimester. I thought you were waiting until then to tell Rosalie."

"Edward. I was talking about the 3-D printer that I ordered. It should be set up in the hospital by today." She rolled her eyes. Edward looked at her in amusement, his crooked smile making her heart flutter to this day. He gently stroked her arm, sending warmth down her body.

"Babe, my ears are going to fall off if you even think about telling me more about your 3-D printed liver models. Come on, it's the end of your first trimester. It isn't wrong to find some happiness in that. Let's focus on that. Relax a little. Go tell your best friend, she'll be happy for you." Placing a searing kiss on her lips, he got up from her clutches and stood by the bed, trying to shake the sleepiness away. Bella lay awake in the bed, staring at his chiselled face. It wasn't that she was not happy, of course she was. They had such a hard time over the past few years trying to conceive. She knew how badly Edward wanted kids. He made her want to have kids, a desire she never knew she had. Before she could delve too deep into her thoughts, Edward pulled her from the bed, and soon any worry she could have was forgotten, replaced by the sensation of his warm kisses all across her body. The hunk of her husband was going to be the death of her.

* * *

Edward was about to walk into the interns' locker room to collect his intern of the day, Dr. Newton, but paused when he caught the tail end of a conversation about Dr. Cullen. Catching up with the hospital gossip never hurt anybody, so he leaned by the entryway, straining his ears to listen in, while putting a nonchalant appearance.

"Dr. Cullen rejected my cookies." An intern complained.

"That sounds dirty."

"No, you idiot. I bought a box of cookies for Dr. Cullen, seeing as he's been depressed since a month. I'm on his service today, so I'm trying to get some brownie points. I haven't seen the inside of an OR in days." An intern groaned.

"Well, his wife has been gone for over a month. Apparently, she has been attending a bunch of seminars across the east coast regarding alternative approaches to pain relief. I can't believe she can afford to be away from work for a month."

"She is an attending anesthesiologist. She must've made a good deal of that sweet sweet coin."

"Hey, did you hear, Chief McCarty grabbed some poor nurse's boobs thinking that it was Dr. Hale?" That last sentence explained Rosalie's hysterical cackling in the attendings' lounge that morning. And though he wanted to do nothing more than grab a bowl of popcorn and get more educated about the latest happenings, he did have an image to uphold. So, he briskly walked in, loudly clearing his throat to announce his presence. The last time he made the mistake of not doing so, he walked in on the interns showing each other their back hair.

"Dr. Newton, every single day you beg to scrub in on my surgeries, and the one day that you're on my service, you stand here gossiping? Maybe I should ask Dr. Olinsky here to join me instead." He looked at the strawberry-blonde headed, persistently cheerful intern standing next to Newton. How an intern held that amount of energy on a Monday morning had to be one of those unanswered questions of the universe.

Newton, however, found no amusement in the situation, and surreptitiously glared at Tanya. He sincerely idolized Edward, and was desperate to get as much access to him as possible. He always asked Dr. Swan to put in a good name with her husband. He even stayed back after hellish shifts in the E.R. to go over Dr. Masen's cases, just in case he had the offhanded chance to scrub in on his surgeries. He couldn't afford to miss this opportunity, so quickly shoving Tanya aside, he closed his locker and scurried after Dr. Masen. Tanya rolled her eyes at his antics, but nevertheless hurried towards the nurses' station on the surgical floor, ready to collect her charts and report to Dr. Swan. She did have a peculiar case for her to consult on.

* * *

Bella stood by the nurses' station, glancing at the OR board to take stock of her schedule. She immediately noticed the buttery smell of shortbread cookies, and spun in their direction, only to find Rosalie shoving them into her mouth.

"Where'd you get these cookies from?" She asked, staring at the sweet confection longingly.

"Well, Dr. Cullen didn't want some intern's pity cookies, and voila, they're now at the nurses' station." No matter how delicious they smelled, the sight of Rosalie unceremoniously shoving them into her mouth was off-putting. Rosalie noticed Bella's open-faced disgust, and couldn't help but roll her eyes. She didn't have the energy to be prim and proper, especially after her hands had been elbow deep in some patient's body for five hours straight.

"Whatever, these cookies are awesome. You're missing out. Don't think I can't see it in your eyes, Swan, I know you want a bite. Don't you want a bite of this flaky, crumbly, buttery goodne- Ow! What the hell?" Rosalie winced as Bella shoved her. Before she could mete out some punishment, she saw her best friend's attention being stolen by Dr. Masen, who had just entered the nurses' station. Rosalie let out a frustrated sigh. She wanted to talk to Bella on a serious note. She had been noticing how weird Bella had been lately, and though she had her own suspicions, she wanted to hear it from her first. She was just about to grab her shoulder to bring her back from making those sickening gooey eyes at her husband when an intern came rushing in towards them.

"Dr. Swan! I have this patient, she's a 19-year-old college kid, nauseated with a distended stomach. And she says there's no way that she's pregnant." The intern, Dr. Tanya Olinsky informed them. Bella grabbed the chart from her, looking at her intern's notes about the patient.

"Huh." Bella smirked. "Everybody says that, and then they always end up pregnant."

"Okay, but what if the pregnancy test was negative?"

"What? Fine, I'll come with you. But I'm not taking point, you are." With that, the two doctors disappeared. Rosalie quickly turned around to face Edward, and put up an air of thinly veiled suspicion.

"Yeah Edward, it really is a problem, isn't it? People claiming to not be pregnant when they really are?" Her tone became more accusatory towards the end. Edward's head sharply rose, looking at Rosalie with surprise.

"You know?"

"Of course I know." Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Her boobs got massive about two weeks ago, and she's been devouring any food that comes in her sight." Edward smirked at her observation, used to her bluntness at that point. She wasn't wrong in her, er, astute observations about his wife's endowment. He'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the new developments.

"But she didn't tell you?"

"No, but she knows that I know."

"So you know that she knows that you know?" Edward asked, puzzled.

"Mh-hmm." Rosalie hummed, but soon took stalk of the doubt painted on his face. "Well, she'll tell me when she's ready to feel happy about it." Gently grabbing his shoulder, she gave him a firm squeeze. "Congratulations." She smiled, walking away. Edward nodded at her in gratitude, grateful that she always had his wife's back. But her words struck him. He did hope Bella was happy. Nothing was worth it if she didn't want it too.

* * *

Reviews and criticisms are appreciated.


	2. Reveal

"Hello Taylor, this is Dr. Isabella Swan. She will be looking into your case today." Tanya told the nineteen-year-old patient, who was accompanied by her mother. She handed the lab results to Dr. Swan, giving the patient a warm smile.

"Hello, Taylor. I had the opportunity to look at your lab results. You are not pregnant."

"Of course she isn't pregnant." The mother scoffed. "Taylor knows better than to bring boys home. She knows she needs to focus on her studies." Taylor nervously nibbled on the ends of her hair, which her mother promptly yanked out. The mother's concern, though genuine, increasingly became overbearing. Bella gave a pointed look to Tanya. She stepped back, allowing Dr. Olinsky to take point.

"Taylor, do you mind if I take a look at your stomach?" She asked.

"Of course you can take a look at her stomach. You're her doctors." Tanya pretended to not take notice of the mother. She focused on prodding the patient's abdomen.

"Does that hurt? Have you been feeling constipated lately?"

"I don't know." The patient mumbled.

"Jesus, speak up! No one can hear you when you're mumbling."

Begrudgingly, Taylor gave an affirmative "Yes."

"Yes, what? Yes, you're constipated? The doctors aren't mind readers, Taylor."

Bella decided to help out Tanya. "Ooo-kay. Mrs. Lenz, do you mind stepping outside while the doctors examine your daughter?" She didn't leave much room for debate when she guided her out of the examining room. Taylor looked at the retreating form of her mother, releasing a breath of relief.

"That was awesome!" She confessed to Tanya, who could only smirk in response. Soon, Bella returned to the room, the nagging mother noticeably absent.

"You need to talk to the patient Dr. Olinsky. If the mother interrupts you, you stop her. Let's do this again, shall we?" Tanya nodded and quickly began repeating the procedure.

* * *

Dr. Elazer Denali, predecessor of the incumbent Chief of Surgery Dr. Emmett McCarty, had been hounding her ass about Dr. Cullen. Apparently, Carlisle's surgical hours had taken a sharp decline, and as Swan was his 'star' pupil, he wanted her to check up on him. If it were any other person, Bella would not have hesitated to tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine, but it was Carlisle that Dr. Denali was talking about. Dr. Cullen had been her resident when she came to Seattle Presbyterian as a surgical intern. He was the one who had hounded, tortured, lectured, berated, instructed, guided, supported and moulded her intern group into the doctors that they had become. He may have only been a few years older than her, but his intelligence, talent, dedication and hard work had set him apart from the rest. But most importantly, it was because of him that she had gotten into the field of General Surgery. She had a soft spot for him, given the uncountable hours they had toiled in the ORs together, so if she had to drag him by the collar into the OR, then so be it. She peeked her head into the room, knocking on the door to alert him of her presence.

"Hey Carlisle." Dr. Cullen had been immersed in cataloguing the various jars containing surgically resected tissues and foreign objects. She saw jars of things that no one could imagine being extracted from the insides of patients, from whole staplers to the heads to Barbie dolls. Carlisle simply raised a brow at her, questioning her presence. When she refused to budge, he pointed towards one of the jars that she had been eyeing.

"Malignant teratoma, resected from a liver in 1985."

"This thing is 34 years old?" She wrinkled her nose at that.

"Yeah. I had to snatch it from Dr. Denali to add to my collection."

"Wait, I remember this." She said, pointing towards a jar of pennies. "This is the guy who swallowed all the pennies. This was in my intern year!" Carlisle smiled, grabbing a jar containing scissors.

"That's Ron Newsome. The very next month, he came in swallowing this." He pointed at the jar. They both exchanged small smiles, remembering the past days.

"What are you doing here, Swan?"

"I wanted to ask you if you wanted to scrub in on a surgery. It's a very cool case, a 19-year-old has an unidentified mass in her abdomen."

"I'm busy."

"Come on Carlisle. I heard you haven't been operating. I'm worried about you."

"I don't need your help. I need to be left alone." He bristled. Being one to never back down from a challenge, Bella smugly looked at him, knowing that what she was about to tell him would change the tune that he was singing.

"Well, have I told you that the patient chews on her hair an awful lot?" She raised an eyebrow at him. Immediately, Carlisle's eyes widened in excitement. Poor Carlisle, Bella thought. So predictable. Hook. Line. And Sinker. It all worked out in the end. Carlisle did end up with a massive hairball to add to his disgusting collection.

* * *

Bella twisted her neck, the cracking sound being incredibly satisfying. All in all, the day had come to an end, and she was happy with how everything worked out. As she headed towards the nurses' station to drop off her charts before heading home, she found Edward waiting for her by the elevators. He gave her a warm smile, and she couldn't help giving him one of her own. As she embraced him, she noticed him restraining his hand from rubbing her stomach, settling for a kiss on her forehead. She knew he wanted to yell out to the world that they were going to be parents. Yet, he was waiting for her to be ready. So, it wasn't a hard decision to make when she saw Rosalie towing Emmett towards them. She squeezed Edward's hand, and walked towards them.

She might've invited them to join their dinner date.

Emmett might've proposed a toast celebrating their longstanding friendship.

She might've refused a sip of the champagne.

And when Rosalie looked at her knowingly, and Emmett's eyes widened into saucers as realization dawned, she might have allowed herself to shed a few happy years when she was warmly hugged by the people at the table, people she considered family.


	3. Hell (Part I)

Edward saw Bella trudging towards the nurses' station, where she collapsed into a chair in front of the computer. He could see a scowl marring her beautiful face, her anger today being directed towards a cup of decaffeinated coffee that he got for her. He tried to avoid meeting her eyes, scared that she would throw the cup full of liquid at his face. While it was searing hot. He felt her eyeing him, and before he could give her a few words of sympathy, Chief McCarty abruptly paged his staff to meet up in the lobby of the surgical wing, conveniently located in front of them. Dr. Emmett McCarty stood on top of the stairs, his imposing figure looming over the crowd gathering in front of him. It was hard to gauge the news he was about to deliver, his inscrutable countenance giving nothing away. When enough people gathered around, Chief McCarty began talking.

"Okay, folks. Let's just start. As many of you know, Seattle Presbyterian has suffered a financial setback. The administration is working hard to keep the impact of that setback as small as possible. To that end, we're gonna have to initiate some cost-cutting measures. The hospital board has hired a physician advisor to help. Any questions?"

"What's a physician advisor?"

"Well, she consults on maximizing efficiency, streamlining processes, assessing where we can trim our budgets."

"Who to fire and when to fire them?"

"No. Nothing of that sort. She's here to advise and to help. She'll lend her medical and managerial experience to give the budget some much-needed breathing space."

Any talk about budget restrains was always negatively perceived in a hospital. Edward couldn't help but worry about the impact this would have. Where would one cut costs? Would using cheaper products affect the level of care that they provided? Could he no longer perform pro-bono surgeries, and be forced to clip boring aneurysms all day? He was a thrill seeker; he got high off the adrenaline rush from performing incredibly risky surgeries. He tightened his arms across his chest, indignation seeping him. Bella knew where his thoughts were headed, so she gently grabbed his arm, directing his attention towards her.

"Edward, can I talk to you for a second? It's urgent."

"Of course. Is something wrong?"

Without saying another word, Bella dragged him into the nearest on-call room. As soon as they entered the room, she shut the door, locking it behind them. Pushing him onto a bed, she began kissing him with fervour. Edward might've been taken aback for a quick second, before cradling her face and returning the kiss with passion.

Kiss. "Bella, not that I don't" A tug of the hair at the nape of his neck. "looove what we're doing," A kiss on her throat. "But this is what was urgent?" Her straddling him.

"I'm sorry. It's the stupid pregnancy hormones. It makes me want to have sex all the time." Every few words she spoke kept being interrupted by his kisses. Edward grinned at the crazed woman.

"Oh, I like the stupid hormones." Just as she was about to descend onto him again, her pager rang.

"Oh no!" She moaned, her face puckering up.

"What?"

"I have a consult!" Edward sobered up in an instant, alarmed by her tone.

"What?" He grasped her shoulders, searching her face for answers.

"I have a consult." Her voice became high pitched, blending in with her cries.

"Are you crying?"

With that, she could no longer contain her sob. "No!" she muttered, but immediately nodded her head in agreement. "Yes, Okay? I cry every time I get mad!"

"You're mad?" He asked, flabbergasted.

"Yes, I'm mad! I'm mad because I can't have sex because I have this stupid consult! Ugh!" Suddenly, they heard knuckles rapping on the locked door.

"Dr. Masen?" a voice enquired.

"Newton?" Edward questioned.

"Sorry to bother you, sir, but I was hoping to scrub in with you today, I heard you were working on an acoustic neuroma today. I'm supposed to be on Dr. Swan's service though. So I was wondering - if maybe you could talk to your wife for me?"

Bella's nostrils comically flared out, her body quivering with rage. She got off Edward instantly, and wrenched the door open, only to meet Dr. Newton's shocked face.

"No, Newton, he cannot talk to his wife for you, because you're with me, and we have a consult with a lady with abdominal pain. So go do the workup, and I will. See. You. There." She growled out, emphasizing the last few words. Dr. Newton, not needing to be told twice, ran away as soon as he saw frustrated tears on her face. She went back in, grabbed her white coat and pecked Edward a few more times before hurrying out of the on-call room. Edward lay back on the bed, taking a second to process the roller coaster of emotions he'd just witnessed.

"Well, I am definitely liking the stupid hormones." He grinned into the air.

* * *

"Ughhh." The patient named Brie groaned, clutching onto her protruding stomach. "It's as if a knife were stabbing me repeatedly." She huffed, her breaths coming in short pants. Much of her energy was focused on reigning in her moans, making her breathless.

"Are you sure these aren't early labour pains? Because if it is, then I'm gonna kindly ask for you to wait until I do my makeup. I need to be the cuter mom in the baby pictures." Brie's partner joked.

"Heidi!" said woman was reprimanded. Heidi glanced at her wife, quickly apologizing. She looked back at Dr. Swan, who looked at the whole scene with amusement.

"I'm sorry Dr. Swan, it's just that I begin to drone off when I'm nervous. Brie hates it. She's the quiet one." Brie moaned loudly. "Well, usually."

Bella monitored the fetal heart rate, seeing no anomalies in it. "I don't believe that these are contractions. Baby seems to be normal to me."

"Then what's going on?"

"This is where we investigate using lab reports. Dr. Newton should be back with the results soo-"

"Dr. Swan! I know you, um, wanted the Chem-18, but it just so happens to be that I checked the Chem-7 box on the paperwork." Bella glared at him. "Which is very obviously my fault, so I will go ahead and get the right lab results for you." Dr. Newton scampered away.

"It seems I'm not the only one who nervously babbles." Bella shook her head in agreement, but was soon pulled back to the situation at hand when Brie let out another painful wail.

"Okay, okay, sorry about that." And back to the case she went.

* * *

Heidi decided to buy some pick me ups for Brie, who seemed to be in endless pain. Heading to the hospital gift shop, she bought almost a dozen large helium balloons, along with the largest floral arrangement she could find. Struggling to balance all the gifts in her hands, Heidi walked up to the patient room, only to meet a flurry of activity happening inside.

"Apply cricoid pressure! I have to tube her." A blonde haired doctor that she'd never seen before took charge of the situation, barking orders at the nurses.

"Is she okay?" Heidi tried to ask someone, any one of the multiple people who seemed to be engrossed with working on her wife. Her words seemed to have fallen over deaf ears, for no one looked at her twice.

"Get me an E. T. tube!"

"Start her on 10 micrograms of Dopamine, and Newton, where are her damn labs?"

"Here you go sir." Newton passed the results to the doctor named Cullen, but abruptly stopped when he caught an eye of the numbers on the paper. "Oh. Oh no. Dr. Cullen, I think she's in liver failure."

Dr. Swan burst into the room, seemingly out of breath from running. "Cullen! What happened? I came as soon as I got paged!"

"Swan, Newton's right. Her liver won't last another week." Hearing that, Heidi collapsed onto her knees, the gifts she bought long forgotten.

* * *

"I- I don't understand I- I just went to the gift shop I was away for a few minutes and then I come in and you're shoving tubes down her throat?" Heidi hugged her arms around herself, trying to contain her sobs. She couldn't fathom how rapidly the situation had deteriorated, and the doctors themselves seemed to not have any answers.

"Heidi, we suspe-" Dr. Swan began to explain, but she immediately stopped her.

"Is it because of the baby?"

"No, no no no. It's completely unrelated to the pregnancy." But Heidi's still felt clueless, desperately trying to grasp the situation. Dr. Swan nodded at Dr. Cullen, who tried to explain to her what was going on.

"It seems that Brie's liver isn't functioning normally, because of which it is not able to filter out toxins from her bloodstream. So her body's shutting down from the toxin accumulation."

"Yeah." Dr. Swan chipped in. "Our prognosis is that without a liver transplant, her liver will last only another 72 hours."

"But don't people wait years to get a transplant?" Heidi was confused with all the information. Dr. Swan tried to give her some hope, giving her a small smile.

"Not always. In emergency cases like these, the patient gets pushed to the top of the list."

"Dr. Newton, why don't you notify UNOS fo-"

"But what about the baby?" Dr. Cullen saw how frazzled she was becoming, and placed a reassuring arm on her shoulder.

"The baby is perfectly fine for now. So for now, we just wait, okay?" He searched for some sign of comprehension from Heidi, and let go when he found understanding dawning on her face. With that, the doctors exited the room, giving the family some space. Immediately, Dr. Newton opened his mouth to apologise when Bella cut him off, even before he could say anything.

"Newton. Do not say anything." And just as she turned around, Dr. Newton swiftly replied.

"I am so, so, sorry Dr. Swan."

Bella clenched her fists, biting her lip as she felt tears welling up. "NEWTON! Is this you not talking? Go away, and do not, come back to me, without. A. Liver." Carlisle looked at her in amusement, especially as Newton was still standing there.

"Can I get you a tissue maybe?"

"GOOOOO!"

This day was hell. There was no way things could get any worse.


	4. Hell (Part II)

Edward walked up to the surgical floor, checking out the operation scheduling board to try to figure out how he could throw the wretched Physician-Advisor or whatever she called herself off his back. He'd been discussing the latest symptoms of his patient with his intern Dr. Olinsky when Chief McCarty and she-who-shall-not-be-named crept up behind him. The sour-looking woman invited herself into his OR, not bothering to use nice words like please and thank you, so when he was kindly about to tell her to go fuck herself, a pointed stare from the Chief shut him up. It was only because of his begrudging respect for Dr. McCarty that he stopped himself, but who the hell was she to barge into his OR, and see whether he was being 'efficient' while a freaking patient was cut open on the table? The last thing any neurosurgeon needed, especially when working with delicate matter like the nerves and the human brain, was some stuck up bitch breathing down his back. So, when Dr. Olinsky headed towards him, looking ready to head towards their next case, he decided to give her a single, clear order.

"Tanya. I need you to get Dr. Jane Weiss, the Physician-Advisor that chief McCarty brought in today off my back. You will do whatever it takes to keep her out of my OR. Am I clear? I don't care what you need to do; you have my permission for it. Hell will freeze over before she tries to boss me around in my surgery."

Dr. Olinsky stared at him slack-jawed. The typically friendly doctor had transformed into a man scorned. He was usually the kind of guy who acknowledged everyone one for their contributions to his surgical cases, whether it was a lab technician or a scrub nurse. He always appreciated and respected other healthcare workers around him, so seeing the vehement behaviour he was currently displaying was definitely out of the norm. All she could do there and then was nod her head, looking like she was completely on board with his wishes. Internally, she was freaking the fuck out. How do you keep someone way above your pay-grade out of your boss's OR?

* * *

"Oh! There's my guy!" Saying so, the woman seated next to the patient's bed rose as soon as Dr. Masen walked into the room, his intern tagging along.

"Well, hello to you too, Carla." Dr. Masen responded, good-naturedly.

"How are you? Wait. Are you still married?"

"Ah, if I'm doing everything correctly, then yes." Dr. Masen smiled. The patient rolled his eyes at his sister's antics and decided to cut the embarrassing conversation before she said something she might regret.

"Ignore her, Dr. Olinsky. She has no boundaries." He warned the intern. Carla smacked her brother on his arm, glancing a look at the intern accompanying the handsome doctor.

"You think she cares, Jimmy? Wait. Unless she's the wife." She looked directly at Dr. Olinsky with a questioning raise of her brow. "Are you the wife?" Mortified at that, Tanya comically shook her head, before the crazy woman started to think of her as some sort of competitor.

"Okay, then, I guess I'm in the clear." She joked. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Dr. Masen began examining the patient at hand.

"Headaches still bad?"

"Oh yeah, he can barely get off the couch. He makes me wait on him as if he were some kind of a prince."

Jimmy rolled his eyes at his sister. "Warms your heart, doesn't she?" Edward laughed it off. Looking at Olinsky standing unresponsive in the corner, he tried to bring her into the conversation.

"Dr. Olinsky, what are the symptoms of a patient with an acoustic neuroma?"

"OH! It can vary between hearing loss, increased intracranial pressure, tingling in the fa-"

"How about being a giant pain in my ass!" Carla interjected.

Noticing the sister's frustration, Edward decided to get out of the room before he could witness her meltdown. "Well, we're gonna run some scans and some labs and see if the tumour has progressed. We'll get a clearer understanding once we get the scans. You guys have a nice day." With that, he walked out of the room, Olinsky on his side. After a safe distance from the patient room, he pulled her aside.

"Olinsky, see if you can switch with Newton."

"Oh. Dr. Masen, did I-"

"No, it's nothing you did wrong. It's that Newton knows what I want before I even ask for it. I won't have time to teach you on this one. Especially with the distinct possibility that someone will be keeping an eye on me the whole case." With that, he left her, heading towards the computer lab to do some additional research.

* * *

"Newton. Your hero wants me to switch with you. You're welcome."

"No can do. I'm waiting on UNOS to call with a liver."

"So go wait for it while you're in the OR while you're playing teacher's pet with Masen." With that, Tanya tried to tug Newton from the chair he was sprawled out in.

"I'm not moving from this spot, Olinsky. See, this place has great cell reception! Five full bars!" He shoved his phone in her face. Tanya rolled her eyes at his antics.

"You do know it's not like ordering a pizza, right? It could take days to get a call back!"

"Well, My patient doesn't have days!"

Frustrated, Tanya stole the phone from his hand. "Go, I'll wait. I'll wait for the call from UNOS, and as soon as I get a call, I'll run to Dr. Swan. I promise." As soon as she finished the sentence, a loud ringing noise penetrated the tense atmosphere. Newton, now reinvigorated by the call, tried to grab his phone back, but Tanya put up a fight.

"Give me back MY phone! If I miss the call, Swan will kill me!"

"But if I go back to Masen and it's not you, he'll kill me!"

"Gimme my phone!" Newton successfully snatched his phone, answering the call and running away to deliver the news to Dr. Swan.

Tanya looked at his retreating figure in frustration. Deciding she had nothing better to do, she headed towards the surgical floor. She needed to do something, and fast, if she wanted to save her ass and not get herself killed in Masen's hands. She saw the Chief and Dr. Weiss standing by the surgery scheduling board, and as she crept closer, she heard them talk about the time slot of Dr. Masen's surgery. Immediately, an idea struck her. She slowly walked towards the board, leaning against it nonchalantly. Discreetly, she used her elbow to wipe the 8 am time slot next to Dr. Masen's name, and made it look like a 3. Satisfied with the job, she cleared her throat, trying to gain Dr. Weiss's attention.

"Sorry to inform you, Dr. Weiss, but Dr. Masen's surgery has been rescheduled." She told her. Dr. Weiss looked at the board, rechecking the time slots.

"Oh." Dr. Weiss kept checking her notes to the board, realizing her error. "Looks like I misread the time. Well, this should work better with my schedule. Thank you, er, Dr?"

"Dr. Olinsky." Dr. Weiss nodded at that and walked away, nose buried in some documents. Tanya turned around, biting the inside of her cheeks to counteract the big smirk her face was contorting to.

* * *

Bella headed towards the elevators, now armed with her hospital branded jacket and a sterile organ transport cooler in her hand. She was about to approach Dr. Cullen to inform him of the recent development, but saw him appearing to be pretty engrossed in his work. She stood near him for a second, scanning his attire with her perceptive eyes. Carlisle looked immaculate in all his crisped shirt, starched collar glory. His attending garb was such a stark contrast to the glory days of his residency, where it was rare for his scrubs to not have someone's blood and bodily fluids on them. He paraded around his soiled scrubs like they were a badge of honour; an indication of his victory in the everyday war to save lives. That was how she always imagined her mentor to be: in scrubs, feet hurting from the long-standing hours of performing a revolutionary surgery, adrenaline pumping relentlessly in his body from the heart-stopping risks they took to save their patients. This prim and proper version of her mentor dressed in traditional office-wear felt like an insult to his brilliance. It was time he stopped wasting away doing consults, and hopefully, the case they were currently working on together would do the trick. Taking a deep breath, she finally approached him, clearing her throat to grab his attention.

"Dr. Swan! Where're you heading?"

"I need to see a man about a certain liver that we are hoping for." She smirked at him. Carlisle's head popped up at the news.

"Really?"

"Yeah. But before I do anything, can I please. Get. Another. Intern?"

"What's wrong with Newton?"

"A lot!" She huffed. Carlisle rolled his eyes at her antics. Swan wasn't usually the one for dramatics, making her outburst all the more peculiar.

"Come on, Swan. The kid made a tiiiiiny mistake!"

"It's because he's an idiot! If I need to work with him for one more minute, I'm probably gonna kill him!"

"Oh? You think you were some prodigy when you came in and that I was dying to teach you?" He sassed her. "You don't think I wanted to kill you, especially when you couldn't even call the code correctly one your first day here, fresh out of school? I showed you mercy. So, be merciful too, and suck it up!"

"Cullen!" she let a scandalous gasp. Carlisle just poked his tongue at her.

"You're no longer my student, Bella. You can't rely on me to fix your problems. You're an attending now, go teach your interns! I had a lot to sort out with you before you could be competent enough to hold a scalpel. You need to give that kid a chance, allow him to make mistakes, but most importantly, make a conducive environment where he can learn from those mistakes. That's how this mentoring thing works." All Bella could do was sigh.

* * *

"Dr. Masen, can you believe it? My cousin Andrea brought Jimmy a giant cookie, right before his freaking surgery!" Carla exclaimed, pointing towards the giant cookie wrapped in cling-film placed on the table at the foot of the bed.

"Tell her to eat it, Dr. Masen. Just one look at it, and now I'm starving. I keep telling her to eat the damn thing!" Jimmy groaned, arms flailing around comically.

"You'd want me to do that, huh. Why? so that you can make more fat jokes?"

"Then at least throw it away!" The siblings' bickering might be entertaining to most, but with the news he had to deliver to them, Edward couldn't find much enjoyment in their antics. Taking a calming breath, he readied himself to deliver the news.

"Jimmy."

"Oh no, I don't like the look on your face. What's wrong?"

"The tumour has progressed."

"But you can still operate, right?"

"I can. But remember the risks we went over with Dr. Olinsky?"

"What, like me going deaf?"

"Yep."

"Or like the one where half my face gets melted like it was blowtorched, or like the one with me not surviving at all?" Edward sighed at the deprecating tone of his patient. As much as he would love to tell Jimmy that he had nothing to worry about, shielding him from the harsh reality, that neuronal surgeries always carried with them a harsh risk, which has only been made even more plausible by the tumour's progression, would do him no good.

"Yes. The chances of these happening are much higher than before." He looked into Jimmy's eyes, finding the fire of defiance burning brighter than ever. "I want you to take some time, think about what I've just told you and see if you still want to go through with the surgery."

"I've taken time. I waited weeks, no, months for your schedule to clear up to accommodate me. But now I'm done waiting! Doc, you can't just keep me here, waiting for this thing to kill me!" Edward was about to open his mouth when Jimmy decided to stop him.

"If you have nothing new to share, then get the hell out of my room!" He sighed, begrudgingly leaving the room, when suddenly, Olinsky materialized from thin air in front of him.

"Here's a recheck of the calcium level you asked for." He gave her a heated stare, questioning her presence when he had dismissed her from the case.

"Newton is gone, Sir. He and Dr. Swan left to go get a liver for one of their patients." When he still didn't look appeased by her presence, she decided to let him in on her incident with Dr. Weiss.

"I made sure she wouldn't be able to find you during your surgery."

"What?" His tone was coloured with disbelief. "How?"

"Let me in on the case, and maybe I'll let you know." That was the easiest decision Edward ever made.

"Deal."

* * *

Bella stared out of the window, zoning out to the blare of the sirens of the ambulance that they were in. She appeared to be in deep thought, when Newton decided to strike up a conversation.

"I want you to know that the thing with the labs, it won't happen ever again. I am s-"

"Okay." She interjected. "Just let it go, okay?" She pleaded, hoping that he would get the hint to shut up.

"Congrats on the baby!" She gave a small smile at that.

"You must be, what, three months in? Baby's the size of a lemon." She turned away from him to resume looking out of the window, trying to physically avoid his yappy nature.

"So second trimester, huh? The fetus is growing feet discharging urine into the amniotic fluid." Bella raised her eyebrows, weirded out by the conversation. Sadly, Newton didn't seem to get the hint. He continued with his ramblings.

"And you must be feeling better, less nausea. But the second trimester's also known to bring with it swollen gums, heartburn, gas-" She spun her head around to face him, her mouth hanging loose in disbelief.

"Do you want me to start crying? Because that's exactly what you're accomplishing here!" Sufficiently chided, and scared to witness his boss crying, Newton immediately shut himself up.

* * *

They were currently at their destination hospital, performing the procedure to retrieve the liver from the body of a recently deceased patient. Dr. Swan decided to allow Newton to scrub in and assist her, taking to heart what Carlisle had told her earlier. She allowed him to retract the skin and prod around, giving him a better visualization of the organ harvesting procedure.

"Okay, Newton. There's the knot." She pointed towards the sutures she had placed.

"Oh. That's a nice one, Dr. Swan." The aforementioned doctor looked up from the opened up patient, giving him a pointed look.

"Uh. Okay. Sorry. Scissors?" He asked the surgical nurse adjacent to him, who swiftly handed them over.

"Now I want you to cut the suture as close to the knot as possible without-" a loud snip was heard, followed by a row of mumbled expletives.

"Oh no. Oh no no no no-" he tried to apply pressure on the squirt of blood coming out of the body.

"Are. You. SERIOUS?" She stated, her voice quivering with complete disbelief. "Ugh. You cut the hepatic artery in the hilum." She said hoarsely, throat tightening from the awaiting onslaught of tears. "You cut the hilum before I had even had the chance to tell you; don't. Cut. The. Hilum!" She yelled. Newton stood opposite her, frozen on the spot.

"Clamp!" She bellowed at the nurse, a squeak of a cry escaping her lips. Newton took a panicky gulp of air, fearing for his life.

* * *

"Unfortunately, there was a surgical complication with the donor liver, and it is no longer viable." Dr. Swan gave the debilitating news to Heidi, the small group of four standing outside Brie's room. Dr. Cullen stood next to Dr. Swan, but Dr. Newton stood a few feet behind them both, his face looking completely neutral. Anyone taking a look at him for longer than a second could see how miserably he was failing to hold his poker face.

"Oh god." Heidi gasped, her hand reflexively covering her mouth. "Okay," she breathed out. "What happens now?"

"Well, Brie is back on the transplant list. We'll continue supportive care so her body's ready, if another liver becomes available, or if we have to deliver the baby." Dr. Cullen replied.

"A C-section? C-can she handle that?"

"Any surgery is risky, and her condition is causing her blood to stop clotting. So we need to continue with the blood transfusions, and buy her some time, until, a liver becomes available." Dr. Swan stated, knowing her words would offer no comfort to the woman in front of her, whose eyes were brimming with tears.

"If, a pretty big if, a new liver gets available, right? Heidi scoffed. Dr. Cullen took a deep breath, Heidi's sharp tone reiterating the hopelessness they all felt at the situation.

"Yes." The conversation lulled for a few seconds. Every passing second deepened the guilt Newton felt in the pit of his stomach, an abyss of self-loathing left in its wake.

"Oh god!" Heidi sobbed, realization settling heavily on her chest. "The last thing I promised her was that she was going to be fine!" With that, Heidi let loose her sobs. Bella could no longer bear the pain, and looking to Carlisle for permission, she immediately excused herself from the conversation. She walked up to the nurses' station, leaning by the desk, rubbing her temples in a desperate attempt to quell the throbbing headache she was developing. Her throat tightened painfully, her teeth clenched shut to prevent the whole floor from seeing her become a sobbing mess.

"I hope you won't mention my colossal incompetence to your husband," Newton stated from behind her, a pained expression on his face. Bella raised her hung head, her sadness morphing to anger as Newton continued to talk to her. "He still thinks I am his golden boy."

"No." She stated. Newton stared at her, shocked by her bluntness.

"Stop that. You don't get to do that. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself or make little self-deprecating remarks. You destroyed a perfectly good liver today. And when I look at you, that is all I see. A perfectly. Good. Liver." Newton, who stared at her in rapt attention, suddenly flinched at the sharp ring of his phone.

"Just a second, Dr. Swan." He told her apologetically.

"I'm not done. Put. Your phone. Away!"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, be better!"

"I'm sorry, but I think it's from UNOS." Bella's eyes widened, giving him a scathing look before snatching his phone and answering it herself.

"Hello?"

* * *

Author's Note: United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is an organization that aides in monitoring donor organs and allocating them to the patients in need.


End file.
